Cúchulain in the General Post Office: Gaelic revival, Irish rising

Joep Leerssen

Publisher:

British Academy

DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197266045.003.0007

This article looks at the importance of the Gaelic language for the development of Irish nationalism in the decades leading up to, and following the Easter Rising of 1916. This importance was mainly symbolical: the Irish language was used mainly by revivalist activists, in a restricted number of functional registers, and largely as an enabling platform of other consciousness-raising activities. It is suggested, however, that such a symbolical instrumentalisation is by no means inconsequential and should be analysed as an important feature of cultural nationalism, not only in Irish history.

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